


Fixed Point

by allonym



Series: TARDIS Victorious [6]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Interspecies Sex, Other, POV TARDIS, Sort Of, Temporary Character Death, The Year That Never Was (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 04:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17522339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allonym/pseuds/allonym
Summary: Another TARDIS POV story, this time exploring her relationship with Jack. Warning: provides an unconventional perspective about the TARDIS's motivations that readers may find unsettling.





	1. Jack, Being Jack

She liked Jack Harkness. She really did. In all her days, he was the only one of her passengers who’d consistently treated her as a thinking being (not excepting her Doctor). He cleaned up after himself, always said thank you, and had a gentle touch when working on her systems.   
  
She showed her appreciation by making sure his room had everything he could want, including every sex toy he’d ever imagined and a few hadn’t . He got so frustrated over the Doctor and Rose making eyes at each other that he just wanted to yell at them to go ahead and shag already. Or let him shag one of them. Or both of them. But he kept his peace because he felt like his place on the TARDIS was so precarious. Instead he contented himself with the contents of the drawers in his room, and the TARDIS watched over him.  
  
Jack, being Jack, did his best to reciprocate the pleasure. “Come on, sweetheart,” he whispered in the dark, “Show me how to make it good for you.” Like many humans, he was slightly telepathic, and his 51st century training had developed his abilities to their fullest extent, so he tried projecting images of his pleasure to her.  
  
The TARDIS didn’t need him to project. She was already sunk deep into his mind, as she was in the minds of everyone who traveled with or who spoke to her Doctor, courtesy of her translation protocols. Usually she kept the link passive, unless she needed to nudge her Doctor’s timeline (like when she gave Rose the image of her seven-year old self winning the bronze gymnastics medal). Such interventions worked best when her people forgot she was even there, so most of the time she just observed.  
  
But for Jack she was willing to make an exception, so when he offered her an image of his animal pleasure she countered with a picture of a tree and a feeling of amusement. Their evolutionary paths were so divergent that they had no common frame of reference, she thought.  
  
Then Jack pushed back and the tree burst into flower, lovely pink and white blossoms. A swarm of honeybees arrived, pollen coating the special organs on their back legs. He zoomed in on a single honey bee, showing the forager land on a flower and nestle in close, brushing golden grains of pollen against the flower’s stigma. The bee’s proboscis unfurled and delicately sipped at the nectar hidden deep inside. Jack tried to fill her mind with the warmth of the sun and the buzz of the bees and the sweet smell of the blossoms.  
  
She was impressed with the depth of his imagery, but unfortunately she was no more closely related to flowering plants than she was to humanoids. In fact, the TARDIS had no sexual organs at all. She could only reproduce through budding (not that she had ever felt the need). Recombination of genetic material was achieved solely in the Time Lord’s laboratories.  
  
There was a time, eons ago, that the Time Lords did not control the biology of the organisms that they would someday cultivate to serve as timeships. Her ancestors were marine polyps, living in the shallow waters of the Gallifreyan seas. Most of their lifecycle was spent in an immobile form, creating great colonies through asexual propagation. Because of prehistoric Gallifrey’s unpredictable weather, these colonies could be quickly wiped out by a violent storm event. In response, the marine polyps developed a rudimentary timesense that allowed them to take action weeks before a storm hit. When danger threatened on the time horizon, the colony would release a cloud of trachomedusae, which would swim away in all directions to begin new colonies.  
  
The link between these small marine creatures and herself was a tenuous one, but it was all she had to offer Jack in exchange for his lovely imagery. So she showed him the violet seas under the red sky of Gallifrey, washing against the true-gold beaches, and then she dived beneath the waves to dart through a majestic colony of her distant family. Their tendrils were shaded from dark green to blue to violet, both absorbing nutrients from the water and converting energy from the red sun. Then she sang a timesong, since Jack could not perceive time directly, and showed the ripple of alert wash along the colony, with the individual polyps expelling the trachomedusae like miniature escape pods fleeing a crippled space ship. The tiny creatures launched themselves into the watery depths like their descendent would someday launch herself into the vortex. Jack fell asleep to the warmth of the Gallifreyan seas washing over him and sound of her timesong.  
  
The next morning, Jack went to the TARDIS library and spent most of the day there, reading. If the Doctor wondered about his sudden interest in xenohydrozoology, he made no comment.  
  
That night Jack came to her vivid images of marine life dancing beneath the waves, joyfully celebrating life, releasing gametes into the cradle of the sea to find each other and to merge and grow. Then he was there, a much younger self, swimming naked under the water, and the sea was now cool and dark underneath a bright blue sky. He was sharing a precious memory with her, and she was honored.  
  
So they passed the evening together beneath the waves. The TARDIS doubted it could really be considered sex, but it was interesting, and it gave Jack pleasure, which pleased her in turn.  
  
Then came the time for the Bad Wolf to arrive.  
  
It began with Emergency Program One, long before Jack joined them. Her Doctor recorded it right after they left Henry van Statten’s bunker, when he realized just how important Rose had become to him. Rose and Adam were asleep in their beds after their adventures with the Dalek. Her Doctor should’ve been sleeping too. Van Statten hadn’t treated him gently, and he still needed healing. But he refused to rest until he finished creating the program and locking it to her flight controls. He was so happy after it was completed, like he had set down an enormous burden.  
  
He had just killed himself.  
  
“The TARDIS is taking you home. And I bet you're fussing and moaning now - typical! But hold on and just listen a bit more. The TARDIS can never return for me. Emergency Program One means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on this machine. So this is what you should do: let the TARDIS die.”  
  
He had just killed them both.  
  
Their dance through time and space relied on one thing: that her Doctor never gave up, that he knew there was always a way out. She could steer their future down the slenderest of timelines, as long as he never gave up.  
  
Now, when the TARDIS looked at their futures, in timeline after timeline, he made the choice to use the program. Deep down he wanted an excuse to use it, wanted to die honorably and not come back. Leaving her to die her own slow death.  
  
Not acceptable.  
  
So she needed to find a timeline where Emergency Program One was activated, but Rose came back to the Doctor, and saved him. Rose would be her ally in this endeavor; the child would do anything to save her Doctor. But how could a mere human, no matter how remarkable, pilot the TARDIS counter to the Doctor’s programming and defeat an enemy that her Doctor thought too great for him?  
  
Then she saw it, the Bad Wolf. To summon the Bad Wolf, she needed her Doctor to weaken the layers of safety protocols that contained her link to the Time Vortex. She needed a tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator to protect her Doctor long enough to allow Rose to escape and to return.  
  
She needed another ally to watch over the Doctor until the Bad Wolf arrived.  
  
So Rose found herself hanging from a barrage balloon not quite sure how she had got there, and Jack Harkness entered their lives. Then came Cardiff, and the tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator, and Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen looking into the heart of the TARDIS.  
  
All the pieces were in place. She could hear the Controller calling through the static. Her Doctor would die, but he’d regenerate into a form more interested in living for Rose than dying for her.  
  
Jack would die too. She couldn’t prevent it. She wouldn’t even be there when he died; there was no way for her to steer him towards a last minute escape. So she gave him one more night beneath the waves, and then let the Controller take him into the Games.


	2. Bad Wolf

The TARDIS looked into Rose, and Rose looked into her. Rose saw her in a way that no being ever had seen her before. Rose saw how she was at all points of creation, along all possible threads in time. She saw how the TARDIS had changed things, with a suggestion here and a nudge there, and how her changes shifted the universe to save the Doctor, and to weave a better pattern.  
  
Rose could change things, too, with no need for subtlety. The power of the Vortex was hers to use directly, with none of the layers upon layers of safeguards the Time Lords had installed to keep their timeships under their control. If she wished, Rose could remake the entire universe.  
  
But there was only one thing that Rose wanted. _I want you safe, my Doctor. Protected from the false God._ The Daleks were dust.  
  
That was the point it was supposed to end. The point where Rose would let go of the time energy. But Rose had looked into the TARDIS. She’d seen how the TARDIS had sacrificed Jack, to save the Doctor.  
  
Not acceptable.  
  
_How can I let go of this? I bring life._  
  
The universe twisted. A fixed point was created, an unchangeable fact. The TARDIS saw the effects ripple up and down the time stream. So did the Doctor. He had to stop Rose, stop her before she did any more damage. But this was _Rose_ ; he couldn’t harm her.  
  
_The sun and the moon, the day and night…but why do they hurt?_  
  
He couldn’t harm her, but he could save her. So he absorbed the time energy and healed her body, then sent the energy back into the TARDIS, back into her connection with the Time Vortex.  
  
Jack was now moving, becoming aware, making decisions. All the possible timelines collapsed, merged into one possibility, anchored to the fixed point that was Jack. The TARDIS was trapped in linear time. She needed to escape, to run away from Jack. The Doctor felt it too, and quickly carried Rose into the TARDIS, taking them into the Vortex.  
  
As she dematerialized, the TARDIS could feel Jack’s mind reach out. Then silence. She’d escaped.  
  
The TARDIS couldn’t run from Jack forever, though. Especially once he settled at the one location in the universe she was sure to revisit. Her main source of time energy, an unusually stable rift in time and space that she herself had created.  
  
At the end of the Time War, the Eye of Harmony shattered, and she had reeled from the shock of it, her systems resetting, her architecture changing. With the Eye of Harmony gone, she was freed from Gallifrey. No more imperious summons back to the home world, no more trials or forced regenerations for her pilot, no more crippling exiles to a single planet. She would never have to worry about being junked again.  
  
The only dilemma had been the need for a new reliable source of power. So it was no coincidence when she arrived in Cardiff in 1869 instead of Naples in 1860. The TARDIS had whispered to the maid Gwenyth. She encouraged the maid’s view of the Gelth as angels, sent by her dead mother. The TARDIS nudged her towards listening to the Doctor and opening the Rift. And the TARDIS sustained Gwenyth while she stood in the Rift, past the point of death, until the Rift stabilized, leaving a scar that leaked just the right energy to power the TARDIS engines.  
  
It was inevitable that Jack would wait at that scar, knowing that the TARDIS would return sooner or later. Eventually she could no longer evade that fate.  
  
She tried. When she felt herself sucked into a linear timeline, tethered to the impossible man sprinting across the Plass, her panic had alerted the Doctor and he hit the dematerialization sequence in record time. Too late, though. Jack was there and the timeline was locked.  
  
He chased her to the end of the universe, and into the hands of the Master.


	3. The Master

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rated for explicit violence. The TARDIS, the Master, and Jack during the Year that Never Was.

The TARDIS was in agony, her consciousness flooded with the looming conflicting timelines. Reality screamed in horror and she struggled to stitch together the hemorrhaging flesh of the universe. The Master had her in hand, and he’d shredded through the polite interfaces her Doctor used to make his wishes known. But her Doctor’s final act of locking her controls allowed her to defy the Master, until he ripped her apart and forced her to pervert reality. Now the Toclofane were coming; they’d arrive very soon.  
  
Inside the distorted travesty of the paradox machine, the TARDIS desperately hung on to _Self_ . She succeeded only because the Master saw her as a thing, an extension of the Doctor to be used and broken and twisted. She couldn’t hold on for long, though. Once the Toclofane arrived in force, her mind would be gone, dissolved in the acid of unending paradox.  
  
Then Jack arrived, with her Doctor and Martha Jones, and she grasped at the unchanging reality radiating from the fixed point that was Jack, and held fast. The pain of the approaching paradox faded to simple nausea. She didn’t dare look ahead, since the act of looking would lock the future. Instead she was stuck traveling through time like a linear being, each second following the next, in their prescribed order.  
  
Within this bizarre confinement of linear time, the TARDIS did what she could to help her people. Her Doctor was closed off, his mental shields as tight as they could be to protect him against the Master. She added her strength to his. Martha Jones was free, and the TARDIS maintained her translation link, allowing Martha Jones to tell her stories to all the peoples of the Earth. But it was Jack who needed her the most.  
  
* * *  
  
There’d been times in his life when finding himself hanging by his wrists in chains could’ve been the start of a really great evening. But Jack had no illusions about being able to seduce his way out of this situation. He just hoped that whatever plan the unnaturally aged Doctor had whispered in Martha’s ear before she teleported would work. Soon.  
  
It had been hours since he’d been hauled off the bridge of the Valiant by the brainwashed UNIT guards (at least he hoped they were brainwashed). Saxon was probably letting him stew, hoping to soften him up. Fine by him. The longer the Saxon kept away, the better.  
  
As if the thought were a summons, footsteps echoed down the walkway leading to the alcove near the boiler room where Jack was chained. Harold Saxon, flanked by two blank-faced goons, arrived with a genial smile and outstretched arms.  
  
“Captain Jack Harkness! My apologies, I’ve been remiss in my duties as a host. I hope you haven’t felt neglected.”  
  
Jack produced his most seductive grin. His self-appointed mission was to draw Saxon’s fire away from the Doctor and Martha’s family as much as possible, and have fun doing it. “Not at all. Just enjoying your bondage equipment. First rate, but then that’s only to be expected, _Master_.”  
  
Saxon’s friendly expression evaporated and his features twisted in disgust. “Gah! What could the Doctor see in such a revolting freak.”  
  
“Good looks and a sparkling personality?”  
  
“Unlikely,” said Saxon, bringing his hand up to Jack’s face and placing fingertips on cheek and temple. He brought his face very close to Jack’s.  
  
Jack felt Saxon press against his mental shields, but swiftly deflected the intrusion. He looked Saxon in the eyes without flinching. “You know, if you really want to kiss me, you could try just asking.”  
  
Saxon smiled, and Jack felt unease stir in the pit of his stomach. “Tell me, _Captain Jack Harkness_ , how long will it take your nose to grow back?”  
  
“Wha..” Jack was interrupted by the hum of a laser screwdriver, and agony bloomed across his face. **_His face._** The bastard cut his face. Jack had experienced torture, before and after immortality, but no one had touched his face before. The pain and the blood were the least of it. The motherfuckingbastard cut his _face_. Jack choked out a string of curses in a language that wouldn’t be spoken for thousands of years.  
  
Saxon studied his handiwork and pursed his lips, shaking his head. “No, no, no. This doesn’t look right. Let’s see. . .”  
  
The laser hummed again, and Saxon wielded it like a paint brush, slicing through a cheek, along a jaw, across an eye. Jack screamed now, pulling back as far as the chains would alow, a wordless horrified protest.  
  
Saxon gave him a pleased smile. He brought his hand to Jack’s face again, pressing hard against the damaged flesh, blood welling up around his fingertips.  
  
“ ** _Now show me the Doctor,_** ” he said.  
  
Jack’s mental shields evaporated and he was back on the Game Station, with the Doctor and the Dalek Emperor. _“Never doubted him, never will.”_ Throwing everything he had at the Daleks, buying the Doctor a few seconds more. Weapons exhausted, he felt an absurd sense of joy when the final shot came, having emptied himself out for the time traveling alien. Then waking up next to a pile of Dalek dust, hearing the familiar sound of the TARDIS. The heart wrenching despair as he arrived just in time to see the TARDIS disappear. Taking care of the bodies at the Game Station, as he waited weeks for the Doctor to come back for him. Then back on Earth, still waiting, and waiting. Finally, the right TARDIS at the right time, and sprinting across the Plass only to see his hope disappearing. Grabbing hold, to the end of the universe. Then finally reunited. . .  
  
_“Busy life. Moving on.”_  
  
“It's not easy, even just... just looking at you, Jack, 'cause you're wrong.”  
  
“You're a fixed point in time and space; you're a fact. That's never meant to happen. Even the TARDIS reacted against you, tried to shake you off. Flew all the way to the end of the universe just to get rid of you.”  
  
Saxon’s rage blossomed, his thoughts pounding into Jack’s head. Jack was useless to him. The Doctor had tricked him again. Jack was nothing but a tool to the Doctor. Not really one of his beloved pets after all. At best he’d be a cheap party trick, to play with and kill and then kill again. Possibly a lever to use against Martha’s family, but not a path to the Doctor’s hearts. Saxon had contaminated himself with this perverted _wrongness_ for nothing.  
  
Jack was falling, falling into darkness, mind filled with the rage and disgust of the Master.  
  
When Jack woke up, he was lying naked on an unending plain of silky white sand, next to a small pool of sea-green water. The sky was a clear blue. His hands flew to his face. Undamaged. He crawled to the pool and looked in. The still water offered his reflection, handsome as ever. He lay down with a sigh of relief.  
  
He wondered idly where he was. It should feel desolate, but instead it was comforting, safe. The echoes of Saxon’s attack were fading. Lucky he gave up when he did, only skimming the most painful memories of the Doctor from him. The happier memories, of Jack and the Doctor and Rose, were safely hidden. How he’d managed to protect them after Saxon stripped away his defenses so easily. . .  
  
Someone had been protecting him. The Doctor? No, the Doctor wasn’t that strong a telepath, maybe not even as strong as Saxon. But who else could it be? A broken melody drifted through his head, reminding him of something, reminding him of. . .of course. He looked back down at the clear green pool.  
  
_That you, sweetheart?_ he thought. Her answering hum that came from all directions was flat, a pale imitation to her usually comforting sound. How much did it cost her, to protect him? He looked around again. She was still protecting him. She must have pulled his mind into herself, away from the horror.  
  
Worry slashed through him. He couldn’t let her do this. After what Saxon had done to her, he couldn’t add to her strain. He felt ashamed, having been broken so easily by his vanity. The TARDIS had experienced so much worse, but she kept fighting.  
  
Although it wasn’t vanity that broke him, not really. His face was his protection; it opened doors, it saved his life, it bought him love. Without it, where would he be?  
  
The background hum strengthened, and a ripple of light flashed across the little pool. Well, he supposed there was one being in the universe who didn’t care what he looked like, and he needed to help her now. He looked around the empty plain once more. No landmarks or other indications of direction. Into the pool it was.  
  
The circle of water was only about five feet across, but it went deep, very deep. He dove in over his head and kept going down. The water was warm, and the light followed him, illuminating the clear green water around him. He felt no need to breathe. Finally he reached a point where water stretched in all directions, as far as he could see. It moved gently back and forth, and he swayed with it and smiled, remembering the games he’d played with the TARDIS, so long ago. This sea was empty, though. He sent out comforting thoughts towards her and began to rise back up, faster and faster. The light grew brighter and he looked up, seeing the surface approaching.  
  
He opened his eyes — well, his remaining eye at least — to the beautiful sight of Harold Saxon crouched on the floor, retching. Looked like merging with Jack’s “wrongness” had produced a hell of a backlash. Jack’s face felt like it was in tatters, although he could sense the familiar tingle of muscle re-growing. He must look like something out of a twentieth century horror flick, judging by the expression on the faces of Saxon’s goons. He grinned with the half of his mouth still connected to muscle, and then laughed.  
  
Saxon looked up, eye narrowed in fury. Jack laughed again.  
  
“So Harry, ready for that kiss yet?” he rasped out.  
  
Saxon shouted his rage and the laser screwdriver hummed once more. Everything went black.  
  
When Jack gasped back into life, he was alone. Dried blood crusted his face, but he was whole. All in all, he’d count this round as a win.  
  
A little while later, Tish Jones arrived to wash off the blood. Her hand was shaking and she was trying hard not to cry.  
  
“Hey darlin,’ no need to fuss over me. I’m just fine. Better than fine. I made Harold Saxon puke, which makes it a pretty darn good day.”  
  
That pulled a smile from her, and she calmed down. Jack had no illusions about why she was there. Saxon was playing with them, allowing them some comfort and hope before dashing it away. But no sense letting fear for the future ruin a moment of near-happiness now. So he played the game, plotting with the others to bring Saxon down, knowing that the plots would never succeed.  
  
Except they did succeed, just as the Doctor had planned, providing a distraction and boosting Saxon’s sense of over-confidence, making him feel in control. They allowed Martha the space to do the hard work of saving the world, one story at a time.  
  
Jack was glad to be there to see the Doctor restored, and was overjoyed to get the order to go take out the paradox machine. He was just sorry there was no time to do it gently, but a reassuring hum heard only in his mind told him he was freeing the TARDIS, not hurting her. He grinned as the rain of bullets ripped through Saxon’s terrible machine, then he was knocked flat on his back from the resulting temporal explosion took hold, reversing time. When the winds died down, he sat up to see the console back to normal, the time rotor pulsing the same lovely green as the pool he once dove into. He’d never seen such a beautiful sight. A friendly mental nudge sent him back onto the bridge just in time to catch Saxon trying to escape.  
  
Jack steeled himself to endure the Doctor’s uncontrolled sorrow when Saxon was shot and killed by his wife. After all that had happened that year that never was, the Doctor’s extravagant grief at the other Time Lord’s passing seemed obscene. Frankly, Jack wished that they’d followed his original suggestion to walk up behind Saxon while wearing a perception filter and break his neck, before the Toclofane ever arrived.  
  
So when the Doctor brought him back to Cardiff and made the long-awaited offer to take Jack with him, it was easy to decline. Jack had people now who needed him, the way that he had once needed the Doctor, and Jack was determined to do a better job at being there.  
  
But he was going to miss the TARDIS. He never told the Doctor what she’d done for him, on the Valiant, and he suspected that the timeship wasn’t in a hurry to share the information with her pilot either. Despite his reputation for having no filters on his speech, Jack did know when to keep a secret when the honor of a lady was involved.  
  
* * *  
  
As she dematerialized away from the Fixed Point in Cardiff, the TARDIS felt a pleasure so sharp it was almost pain. The timelines unfurled in all their glory. She’d been stuck on the linear path so long that the beauty of the temporal patterns seemed new and wonderful.  
  
But she spared a thought for the man tied to the Fixed Point, and contemplated the differences between anchors and chains.


	4. Fixed Point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Massive spoilers for Children of Earth!

He’d gone too far. There was no one to stop him. Donna was right, he needed someone to stop him. But the thought of finding another companion just made him tired. He’d said too many goodbyes already.   
  
He _could_ just answer the Ood. They were calling him, and he knew what that meant. End of his song; a new regeneration if he was lucky. Maybe the next regeneration would be stronger, maybe the next him could say hello and goodbye without heartsbreak. He could learn a thing or two from Jack, perhaps. Lucky for Jack that he didn’t get all torn up by loving and leaving, since Jack’s lifetime of goodbyes was going to make the Doctor’s look like a mayfly’s. Not that mayflies said goodbye, but. . .  
  
The Doctor sighed. There was no one here to see him twist himself up in an analogy. Waste of a good twisted analogy, that.  
  
Speaking of Jack, maybe he could go see him. Jack was one former companion that he’d never have to say goodbye to for forever. The whole Fixed Point thing was distracting, but he really didn’t mind anymore. Almost a relief, in a way, to be anchored to one reality for a while.  
  
Although now that he pictured it, Captain Jack didn’t seem too eager to stick around with the Doctor, after they got the Earth back in place. Jack had made it clear that he had his Torchwood team to look after. Best leave him alone. Shouldn’t use his loneliness as an excuse to muck about in his friends’ lives. They’d moved on, and he should too.  
  
Maybe he needed a vacation. Someplace warm and sunny with banana daiquiris and no fixed points in history he’d be tempted to tamper with.  
  
A ringing interrupted his thoughts. Martha’s mobile — still sitting on the console. He picked it up, glad for the distraction.  
  
“Doctor? It’s Martha. We need you. It’s the children.”  
  
“Children? Have you. . . ?”  
  
“No, no. It’s Earth’s children. All of them! They froze in place at the same time and chanted ‘We are coming.’”  
  
“Oh, that’s never good. I’m on my way.” The Doctor snapped the mobile closed and grabbed hold of the controls, tracing the mobile signal and entering in the coordinates. September 7, 2009, UNIT Headquarters, New York, New York.  
  
Saving the Earth, now that was better than a vacation. His brain ticked through all the species that had the ability to control millions of pre-pubescent humans. Way too many. He needed more data.  
  
When he stepped out of the TARDIS into an alley, his first thought was that it was a bit chilly for September in New York. He automatically adjusted his body temperature and walked out onto the street, looking around, hoping to find a handy newspaper. He was definitely in twenty-first century New York City; the smell was unmistakable. Faceless office buildings lined the thoroughfare, and, based on the fact only a few huddled pedestrians hurried past, it was probably a Saturday.  
  
The sound of running feet made him turn, and there was Martha, in her UNIT uniform. He gave her a big smile but didn’t have a chance to speak a word before she wrapped him in a tight hug. Too tight — this wasn’t a simple good-to-see-you-again hug.  
  
“Martha, what’s wrong?” he asked, pulling back to see her face.  
  
“You missed it, Doctor. Torchwood destroyed the aliens. It’s done,” she said.  
  
“Again?! Martha, this ‘shoot-first’ philosophy has got to stop. . .” he said angrily.  
  
She stepped back. “They didn’t shoot first! Jack went to talk with them. They wanted Earth’s children, ten percent of the population. When Jack refused, they let loose a toxic gas in the building. Killed everyone inside in ten minutes.”  
  
The Doctor’s rage drained away. “Martha, I’m so sorry.”  
  
“That’s not the worst of it, Doctor. I wish you’d been here. The governments decided to agree to the demands. They used UNIT troops to help round up the children.”  
  
“Oh, no. . .”  
  
“Jack stopped it, he sent an auditory signal back to the 456 . . .they never did tell us their proper name. . .that destroyed them and saved the children. All the children, except one.”  
  
“One? Martha, how did Jack send that signal?”  
  
“Same way they signaled us. Doctor, he used his own grandson.”  
  
As Martha went into detail about everything Jack had gone through and lost, the Doctor felt his own hearts break. What a mess. The whole situation was a mess, with everyone pointing fingers and fear and distrust rampant. As much as he loved humans, he also remembered their worst natures, and the current circumstances seemed tailor-made to bring them out. Earth would not be a good place to be for a while, and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing except maybe try to help his friends.  
  
“And now he’s gone, Doctor,” she said.  
  
“Gone where?”  
  
“Off planet, at least that’s what Gwen says. Sounds like he was transmatted onto a passing freighter a last week.”  
  
The Doctor unfurled his timesense, searching for the Fixed Point that was Jack. If he was anywhere in the solar system he’d stand out against the fabric of reality. The Doctor felt a tug that might have been a couple of galaxies away, but it was too far to pinpoint.  
  
“I can’t sense him. I think he’s long gone. I’m so sorry.”  
  
“Doctor, what kept you? Why weren’t you here to try to stop this?” she asked.  
  
“I came straight away, as soon as you called. But the TARDIS couldn’t reach the coordinates. It’s a fixed point in history; nothing to be done to change it.”  
  
Which was technically true. Except that it implied the reason the TARDIS couldn’t reach that fateful day was because it was a fixed point. The real truth was precisely the opposite; having missed the day the 456 arrived, the Doctor was the one who inadvertently created the fixed point. He couldn’t go back now and fix things, because it was part of his personal timeline. And Jack’s central involvement locked out other possibilities for changing it.  
  
Martha sighed. “I figured as much. I’ve been keeping an eye out for you. Mickey helped me rig a sensor around the UNIT building to let me know when the TARDIS arrived.” She showed him her handheld, which displayed a flashing blue box icon. “Speaking of which, do you mind if we going inside the TARDIS before UNIT takes notice of us?”  
  
“I thought you were UNIT,” said the Doctor, as he led her into the alley and to the TARDIS.  
  
“Not for long. They’re not happy with me right now. First, I embarrassed them into disabling the Osterhagen Key. . .”  
  
“Good for you!” the Doctor interrupted, unlocking the door and letting them in. Martha seemed to relax a little when he closed the door firmly behind them.  
  
“And then I was quite vocal with my opposition with the plan to appease the 456,” she went on to add.  
  
“Also nothing less than I’d expect,” he said approvingly.  
  
She gave him a small smile. “Thanks. But I’m done with trying to fix things from the inside. Mickey’s started a freelance organization, sort of like his group in the other universe, that will keep an eye on things and speak up when those in power step out of line.”  
  
“Ah, sounds like something Mickey’d would do,” said the Doctor. “But what about your fiancé? That doctor fellow?”  
  
“Tom and I ended our engagement,” she said, waving her bare left hand. “He’d been getting uncomfortable with my work, and the 456 were the final straw. He had to stand by and watch when UNIT troops rounded up kids from an orphanage from where he’s stationed in Africa. We’re still friends, though.”  
  
“Ah well, good then. I mean, I’m sorry, but good you’re still friends.” The Doctor walked over to the console to fiddle with the controls.  
  
“So,” he continued oh-so-casually, “Does this mean you might be free to do some travelling?”  
  
She walked over to rest a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry, Doctor. Earth still needs me. Although I wouldn’t say no if you wanted to give me a lift to London.”  
  
So they materialized at her flat to get her things, and he took her to London, with no side trips. They said goodbye with one last hug. Again. He decided to look in on Sarah Jane. She was doing okay. Her son was apparently too old to get caught in the 456 signal, although one of his friends had been affected. They had tea and chatted a bit, but he left feeling unsatisfied.  
  
Brilliant as he was, it hadn’t escaped his notice that when he missed his intended destination he usually ended up somewhere else he was really needed. He was careful not to think about it. Not thinking about something took an enormous about of brain power, but luckily he was a genius. No one should know too much about their future, and unraveling the mechanism by which blind chance kept dumping him into the middle of alien invasions might keep it from working. Plus it was more fun to be surprised.  
  
But if he did think about it (which he didn’t), he’d have thought his subconscious was sensing important events that might fold into his personal timeline and piloting the TARDIS there. Which might have led to the question, why did his subconscious send him to a point where he could do nothing to help, a point that would end up locking in a series of horrific events?  
  
But because he wasn’t thinking about it, the question never came up, and all his not-thoughts were quickly whisked away.  
  
Maybe he should try to track down Jack. The Doctor had a good idea what the other man was going through; if anyone understood about sacrificing loved ones for the greater good, it was the Doctor. But would Jack really appreciate his presence? An image of the last time he saw Jack flashed in his mind. He was disabling Jack’s vortex manipulator. _I told you, no teleports._ With a sick feeling, he imagined Jack’s last moments trapped with Ianto at Thames House, unable to protect him from the poison gas. A teleport would’ve come in handy.  
  
Probably best to leave Jack in peace for a while.  
  
Although Jack really shouldn’t be alone. The Doctor knew that better than anyone. Maybe — maybe he could steer Jack towards a possible companion? Someone who might need Jack as much as Jack needed someone. That had possibilities. . .  
  
But first, a vacation. Someplace touristy where they greeted you with plastic leis and nothing ever happened, either good or bad. Someplace that served banana daiquiris.  
  
* * *  
  
She liked Jack Harkness, she really did. But he was a Fixed Point, and posed too much danger. Not his fault; the Bad Wolf had woven it into his being. Last time the TARDIS encountered him, he trapped her in linear time on the Crucible, and she was nearly destroyed in the core of neutrino energy. Luckily the pieces she had already put in motion to solve a particularly _thorny_ problem acted as she intended, and were incidentally also able to save her. Next time she might not be so lucky.  
  
Jack poised the greatest threat when he lived on Earth. The Doctor was sure to encounter him there, and his guilt about how he’d treated Jack made it very hard for the TARDIS to steer him away. When the TARDIS saw a timeline where the Doctor’s late arrival meant that Jack would become so broken he ran away from the Earth, and from the Doctor, she had to take it.  
  
So several galaxies away, a man who had listened to her song and swam through her mind was now wishing very hard he could die.  
  
She was sorry. She was really, very sorry.  
  
In the library, a book on xenohydrozoology disappeared from the shelf. Her Doctor never noticed.


	5. Epilogue

The TARDIS gave birth in the middle of a field in France in 1890. Her Doctor and Amy Pond didn’t notice; they were busy saying goodbye to their friend Vincent. The stubbling resembled a piece of coral, no bigger than a Timelord’s thumb. The TARDIS imparted as much knowledge as she could into the little one’s mind, and taught her to sing, tuning the song to match the thought frequency of the immortal man who would pass that way in a few hours. Her Doctor’s attention twitched and the TARDIS sent him a reassuring hum. All was well.  
  
The TARDIS examined the timeline of her daughter-self and saw Jack Harkness walking through the field, discouraged. He’d gotten tired of waiting at Cardiff and had started chasing tales of strange happenings, hoping to run into “his” Doctor. From Vincent he learned he’d just missed the Doctor, and that it in any case it was the wrong version. Still ignorant of his new nature, he was wondering whether to just give up looking and live an ordinary life as a nineteenth-century man. Then he froze, hearing the simple song of her daughter-self. His feelings of wonder and joy as he picked up the little stubbling were heartening. Then the TARDIS cut off the timevision, before she inadvertently locked down too much of their timeline.  
  
It was strange, to take action with no foreknowledge of what the consequences might be. It would be a thousand years before her daughter-self would be full grown. She hoped that by developing under the influence of the Fixed Point, the new TARDIS could adapt, and would become a good ship and a source of solace for Jack in his long road ahead.  
  
But she did not know. It was a rather illogical leap of faith she was making. As Vincent watched in wonder, the TARDIS began her dematerialization sequence, sending a final pulse to the small being she was leaving behind. From another source it would have been considered a prayer, or a blessing.  
  
She hoped it would be enough.  
  
_Fin_  



End file.
